This is the third post in the Pragmatic Peace series. The first post in the series, Defining Pragmatic Peace, also contains an ever-updating list of posts in this series.
Jeff Lilly has also blessed us with his own special take on the word Temperance in his Word of the Day blog. He discusses the origins of the word, its actual meaning, rather than what appears in the dictionary, as well as its phonosemantics, or how the sounds of the word affect our thoughts on a deep level.
Well, enough introducing other posts. On with the show!
The largest obstacle to feeling peaceful is to have emotions that tear you down.
Feeling stress about paying bills, anxiety about an upcoming performance review, or anger at a person driving slowly in front of you are all examples of emotions that directly harm your ability to be at peace.
What keeps us from feeling at peace most often, though it is rarely talked about and is difficult to overcome, is the underlying depression of addiction.
How Addictions Affect Us
Spider Robinson once wrote a short story titled “God is an Iron.” In it, he describes some very obvious ironies associated with our bodies. Namely, those things which give us the most pleasure also happen to be those things which have the greatest potential to destroy our lives. Drugs and alcohol top the list of addictions that ruin our lives, of course, but you don’t need outside chemicals to become chemically dependent; your body produces enough drugs as it is, in the form of hormones like dopamine, oxytocin, and adrenalin.
Now, each of these chemicals are very powerful and, (I believe, since I’m so nerdy) rather interesting, but explaining their roles in forming addiction is beyond the scope of this article. These chemicals form the core of what is happening inside of our brains from a chemical standpoint, but these chemicals are most certainly not bad… Without them we simply wouldn’t be able to think at all, much less experience joy and inner peace.
That these chemicals also serve to create addictions, which destroy joy and peace, just happens to be a very funny irony, unless, of course, you are stuck in an addictive spiral. Then, it is deadly serious.
So, we all know that smoking can kill you… eventually. That is, of course, bad, even with the “eventually” tacked on. What’s worse isn’t that you’ll die… Living will kill you… eventually. The worst part about smoking is what it does to you on a day-to-day basis.
The first thing that being addicted to nicotine does, is when you wake up in the morning, you are hungry. Food, however, doesn’t stop the hunger… Smoking does stop the hunger, though. Second, this hunger comes back in about an hour, maybe even sooner. In fact, the only limit to how often you get these hunger-cravings is how well your body can tolerate a poison… The healthier you are, the more often you get a hunger-craving. Putting off your next cigarette only makes you suffer… After all, you are actually hungry, even though food won’t help this specific hunger. Relieving these cravings by smoking also makes you suffer as well. Your heart races, but you don’t have enough oxygen in your blood stream to actually give you any energy, so you become anxious and lethargic at the same time. This is definitely not a comfortable feeling. Often, you are required to be outside when you smoke, so the weather plays a large factor in how you feel.
I have literally stood outside in blizzards, in hail, and in torrential rains, as well as in hurricane winds, just so that I could get rid of a cigarette craving. What is worse, though, is when the weather is extremely hot or extremely cold… In hot weather, you become physically ill, especially when it is dry, because cigarettes are very good at dehydrating you. When it is cold outside, a cigarette only increases the chill, because the nicotine pushes the blood up to the surface of your skin, cooling you off even more. Then again, a person who has gone a few days without food would also stand outside in such extreme weather, if only to eat their fill.
Now, I’m telling you this for two reasons. One, well, we have all heard the ads that say that cigarettes kill… but death isn’t the least of a smoker’s worries. Today’s anti-tobacco scare tactics just aren’t honest enough, and aren’t short-term enough. Seriously, if you think death is bad, just wait until you have to live with smoking. Two, it’s to show that the problems with addiction aren’t just the big crash at the end. You suffer during the addiction far more than you suffer when the ‘real world’ catches up to you.
Let’s take an addiction to online games for an example, since I’ve been quite addicted to those as well.
The big crash at the end of online gaming is when everybody leaves you, you are fired from your job, your house is foreclosed on, or you are evicted from your apartment, and you end up homeless. There have even been cases of suicide where the person attributed their decision to something that happened in the game.
Yeah, that’s an extreme example, but so is lung cancer in the case of smoking. That’s the “big scare” that everybody says just couldn’t happen to them, yet it happens all the time.
What about the short term effects? Well, reduced strength from sitting at a computer for extended periods is one effect… There are few feelings that are worse than to look down and notice a beer gut, even though you have been sober for years. There are few things that are more humiliating than to be unable to see your toes, because you haven’t walked further than around a store and around its parking lot during your twice-weekly Mt. Dew and Fritos runs even since you first logged on.
Here’s a hypothetical situation… Let’s say that you are already well into the throes of an online gaming addiction… Just imagine that, then ask yourself, what was your brother thinking of you when you were last on the phone with him? Sure, you haven’t seem him for years, since he’s been off “playing” soldier and getting a college education. So what if you were in the middle of a guild raid of the Lair of Bagu Ragshod when you were talking to him, and you can’t remember what he said half a minute ago… He used to play these games, so he’ll understand, right?
Sadly, this actually happened to me… I’ve recently moved back to my home city, and the first time that I had a chance to talk to my sister, who I’ve seen twice over the past eight years, she told me within the first five minutes of the conversation that she was playing World of Warcraft right then… She promptly continued playing, saying a couple of words per minute, and completely ignored the fact that maybe, just maybe, I would have liked to know what happened to my sister over the years.
How about business opportunities? You can’t exactly write a book, much less outline one and do basic research, if the majority of your time is spent trying to click fast enough to “kill” a computer controlled rat.
The worst part is, a part of your mind stays active while you’re playing those games, and that part isn’t concentrating on the game. That small part of your mind, which just won’t shut up, is telling you exactly what it is that you aren’t doing. It’s reminding you that the dishes aren’t piling up in the sink, because they’re all stuck on the computer desk. It’s taking an inventory of your clean clothes, because it is so much easier than taking an inventory of your dirty clothes. This small section of your brain is forming goodbye cards to send off to your friends, knowing full well that you’ll never actually get out of the game in order to write these letters down.
In short, when you are addicted, you know that there are some parts of your life that are very wrong.
The problem is that this extra stress from knowing that things are bad usually only serve to push you further into your addiction.
Breaking Addiction
I’ll keep this section short, because there is only one method that actually works.
Once you have become addicted, now matter what you are addicted to, the only way to stop being addicted is to stop the addictive behavior. There is no “cutting down.” That only stretches out your suffering, causing you to want your addictive behavior even more. Since, if you are cutting down, you have already given yourself permission to do it again… there is no end.
The only trick is to take a deep, long look inside yourself, figure out honestly what the addiction is giving you, including any good things, and make a decision. If you decide to quit, then be aware that you are also fighting a physical addiction, as the dopamine and oxytocin need to flush themselves out of the part of the brain that was built around the addiction. You will hunger for the addiction, even if it is just some silly online game, just the same as you hunger for food when you wake up in the morning.
Fortunately, unlike our “addiction” to food, withdrawal from an activity is rarely fatal. Just eat celery to take the edge off the hunger, and be aware that you’ll still feel hungry, even after eating.
Warning: Withdrawal from alcohol and certain other drugs can be and often are fatal. If you are addicted to a chemical other than nicotine or marijuana, seek professional advice. I repeat, withdrawal from alcohol and certain other drugs can be fatal.
Preventing Addictions (Here’s the good part, for those who have just been skimming so far)
While it is possible to overcome addictions, it is far, far easier to keep from becoming addicted in the first place.
You not only prevent the Big Crash by not being addicted, but you can avoid the short term misery that being addicted brings. Best of all, you can still enjoy the potentially addictive activity.
This doesn’t work on chemical addictions, such as from smoking tobacco, drinking alcohol, or doing drugs… The best way to avoid these addictions is to not even start the cycle. I’ve learned the hard way, and now that I’ve lived both with and without these chemicals, I would never go back, no matter how strong the random craving may be. Thankfully, these cravings are appearing less and less often, so for those who are struggling with giving up these addictions, there is hope.
But, for activities that have the potential to be addictive, the key is temperance.
Writing in this blog is potentially addictive for me, as is participating in message boards. Unfortunately, I crossed the line with message boards, so I can no longer enjoy sharing my words in such forums. Programming is also potentially addictive, as is playing single player computer games.
Eating comfort food is another potential addiction, which thankfully I have not crossed the line on. Watching television is another addiction which is rampant in society, and I’ve noticed that hiking can also bring out an almost obsessive side to me.
The key with temperance is to do many different tasks for different reasons. There are many different types of pleasures, and each pleasure can easily lead to addiction.
Here’s the problem with pleasure, though. Without pleasure, we can not experience joy, but if we become addicted, we also lose our chance to feel joy.
So, we clearly can not abstain from pleasure entirely. Doing so would definitely take the joy out of life. We can’t seek individual pleasures fanatically either, because of the threat of addiction, which takes the joy out of life as well.
Here’s what I’ve done. I have a very rough schedule for my time on the computer… No more than fifteen hours per week, split into three hours a day for five days, with two days off completely. I have such a strict schedule with my computer time because I have so many computer-based activities which I have gotten extremely close to being addicted to, and even some where I’ve crossed the line. I haven’t cut my time off entirely, though, because I still get pleasure while I’m on the computer.
I also have one hour per day devoted towards cleaning, because cleaning is a hidden pleasure. Doing the cleaning itself may not be much fun, but looking back gives me a surge of pleasure that is well worth the work that I’ve done.
I have five hours per week devoted to watching TV… which only gives me room to watch my five favorite shows, since they are all one hour long.
The rest of the time, and any time that I don’t use on the computer, with cleaning, or watching TV goes towards working, spending time with my wife, and finding new and interesting ways to spend my time. (An “addictive” relationship is called love, and unlike most other addictions, relationships are usually healthy.)
So, how do you set up your own schedule?
Well, first of all, realize that it is arbitrary. Your first schedule should be made up on the spot, without too much thought. You can (and should) always refine it as you see what is and isn’t working. Don’t worry about getting it right the first time.
Second, be flexible. I don’t know one week from the next which days I’ll be spending on the computer, or what days I spend entirely with my wife.
Finally, figure out what your really enjoy doing, make a short list (no more than 10 items), and figure out what you should be doing, and put these on another short list. Be as general as you can, so that you can be flexible.
Here is the first draft of my list, as an example:
I enjoy working on the computer, watching television, and spending time with my wife.
I should clean more often, spend more time with my wife, and find other ways to have fun. I should also continue to work, at least until I can start my own business.
It turns out that each of these can be pleasurable experiences… if I make certain that I’m in the right frame of mind when I’m starting them. Do not think of the items on your “should” list as items that you are being forced to do. Think of them as items that enhance your pleasure, just as salt, while unappetizing by itself, enhances the flavor of food.
Next, write down what tasks have a pre-set schedule, such as working and watching your television shows. Since we can’t change the times that televisions shows are broadcasted, or when our boss wants us at our desks, we have to work around them. Then, look at each item on the “enjoy” list, think of how long you would like to spend doing that task each day and chop that time in half. Keep in mind that you’ll be revising this list later, as you get more feedback, and in the big scheme of things, one week of “missing out” really isn’t missing out at all.
The next step is to take the items on your “should” list, and expand them to fit the remaining available time. If this means cutting into the time that you had previously reserved for your “enjoy” activities, then so be it. Remember, each list only lasts for one week.
Finally, give yourself two days off to find other things that make you happy. Then, when those days come, actually go out and experiment with new things. (Remember: drugs, alcohol, and tobacco aren’t worth experimenting with… If you want, I can tell you all about them, so there wouldn’t be any need to experiment.)
Next week, look at your list, scratch out minor details, write in corrections, and try it all again, for about two months.
At the end of the two months, go through and completely re-evaluate your work. Throw out anything that takes you further away from joy, and add in what you think might now bring you pleasure. Honestly look at the tasks that you are keeping, and ask yourself why you are keeping them. Finally, draw up another list, and keep editing the minor details as you go along.
The first list should take no more than 30 minutes to draw up, and no more than 5 minutes to review each week. The second list should take no less than 30 minutes to draw up, which (barely) gives you enough room to be brutally honest with yourself. Ideally, though, the longer that it takes you to draw up the second list without being distracted, the better.
My second list is coming due this next weekend, and I’m hoping to spend no less than two hours on it.
Have you noticed the Pragmatic Method in writing this list? Simply make your decision, and as time passes, make minor adjustments. After a while, make the major changes based on what you’ve learned, then make your decision once again, continuing the cycle.
Remember, your goal is Temperance. Do not remove pleasure from your life entirely, but be careful not to over-seek pleasure, or that specific pleasure will be gone forever.
Conclusion
To recap, we discussed how addictions ruin our lives, not only by giving us our Big Crash, such as lung cancer with smoking, or homelessness, joblessness, and friendlessness in the case of online games, but also by wrecking our day to day lives, leaving us with less and less pleasure as time passes.
We also covered the most important first step towards having a pragmatic sense of inner peace… Using temperance to keep ourselves from ever being addicted.
Now, I have another twenty minutes of computer time today, so either I’ll be playing Guitar Hero, or I’ll forfeit these minutes in favor of spending my time with my wife… decisions, decisions, decisions… 